Red Flag 13-2

Nellis Red Flag 13-2

Nellis Red Flag is held at the Nevada Test and Training Range and incorporates a wide variety of aircraft.  Interdiction, air superiority, attack, defense, refueling, reconnaissance are all part of the exercise, along with participation of foreign aircraft.  This exercise included aircraft from Sweden, Singapore, Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates.

To watch both the launch and recovery of all the aircraft, one focuses on the obvious, the jet rolling down the runway and flight away from the Nellis airbase and subsequent return hours later.  But when you have time to think about what actually took place in front of you, you start to realize all of the hard work it took to get those aircraft past you.  The hours before the launch, the pilots and crew going through briefings, the people that plan the day exercise.  The coordination of fueling, arming, servicing and maintaining  aircraft. It’s the people in the tower coordinating the aircraft on the ground, listening to the professionalism in the voice of the controllers and aircraft crews.  One begins to get a clearer picture of what Red Flag is all about. Working together to get the job done.  It doesn’t matter if your the Red team or the Blue team, at the end of the day, it was to work together, to get the training, so that you had the experience to take into battle one day.

There is talk of the budget cuts looming on the horizon. It is expected to affect all branches of the military and also Red Flag exercises.  I have been fortunate to witness a day of launches and recovery and can see how curbing these exercises affect the readiness of the services.  I don’t think simulating an exercise prepares anyone as well as having to actually do the exercise.  The planners, the fuelers, the maintenance crew, tower personnel , security forces, flight crews,everyone affected gain thru experience, there is no substitute.

This is my personal observation and opinion.

Dave Niino